Red and white night: how Piraeus celebrated the victory of Olympiacos in the Euroleague

Piraeus survived the night that the fans Olympiacos will be remembered for years. After conquering the fourth Euroleague the city did not just celebrate the victory – it literally took to the streets, turning the center into a huge red and white grandstand.

About the finale and victory Olympiacos Enough has already been said. The main thing now is not the score on the scoreboard, but what happened after the final siren. Piraeus exploded with songs, fireworks, car horns and a stream of people that moved towards Municipal Theaterwhere the main fiesta of European champions was organized.

Thousands of fans began to gather in the city center even before the team arrived. The streets, squares, balconies and sidewalks quickly filled with people wearing red and white colors. For many, it was not just a sports festival, but a long-awaited release after 13 years of waiting for a new European title.

After three o’clock in the morning, the team with the trophy went to the center of Piraeus on an open bus. Along the way, she was accompanied by fans on motorcycles and cars, and the column itself gradually turned into an endless night procession. Singrou Avenue and the streets leading to Piraeus resembled not a transport highway, but a moving platform: flares, telephones, songs, flags and shouts merged into one red and white stream.

As the bus carrying the players and coaching staff approached Municipal Theater of Piraeusthe city was already completely ready for the meeting. Greek media estimates that tens of thousands of people gathered at the center, with some sources saying approximately 100 thousand fans. Even if we leave the exact calculations to those who like to count people in a sea of ​​smoke and flags, the scale was obvious: Piraeus that night belonged to “Olympiacos”.

Municipal Theater was illuminated in the colors of the club, and the area around it turned into the main stage of the celebration. The fans chanted the names of the players, sang club songs, lit fires and greeted the team as if the trophy had been brought not from Athens, but from another planet. Sport in general is a strange human religion, but on nights like this it’s at least clear why it has so many believers.

The players celebrated right on the bus, responded to the greetings, raised the cup and filmed the event on their phones. Trainer Georgios Bartzokas also found himself inside this general madness: he not only accepted congratulations, but also recorded the moments of the holiday himself. For a man who spent years building this team and endured a lot of criticism, it was a personal night of revenge.

The team leaders also came into the spotlight. The fans greeted the players especially warmly, who became symbols of this European campaign. Footage from Piraeus shows the trophy being lifted above the crowd as fans respond with a roar that could easily replace the city siren if the municipality suddenly wanted to save money.

The celebrations were not limited to Piraeus. Fans Olympiacos took to the streets in other cities of Greece. But it was Piraeus that became the center of the night: the city, the club and the fans at that moment looked like one. Here, the victory was perceived not as sports news, but as the return of something of our own, long-awaited and almost family.

The fiesta ended in the morning when the open bus reached Municipal Theaterand the trophy was presented to the fans. But we can call this completion only formally. For fans Olympiacos this night was the beginning of a new chapter: now the fourth Euroleague – not a dream, not a memory of the past and not a reason to argue “when will it happen again”, but a fact that Piraeus celebrated at full volume.

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